Examining the case of Cuban agricultural experience post the Triunfo de la Revolucion as Cuban’s commonly refer to the events of 1959 is very interesting when imagining scenarios of how a post-carbon society may arrange itself. According to a study published in 2006, organic urban agriculture programs produced over 1kg of vegetables per capita and day (tripling the FAO standard of 0.3kg!). These positive results emerged from a remarkable effort to organize alternative production methods within a time period of “scarcity”. Before the fall of the Socialist block, Cuban experienced a “Green Revolution” from 1984 to 1991. With the Soviet’s Union support, this period was characterized by increased productivity by clearing virgin lands for new farmland, extensive and export oriented monocrop cultivation –mainly sugar cane-, intensive use of imported agricultural chemicals, use of hybrids seeds and improved varieties, machinery and oil. During this period, also called “The Soviet Agricultural revolution”, the increased mechanization and the overuse of artificial fertilizers had negative effects on soil’s health, compacting it and saturating its absorbent capacity. Many farmers moved to urban areas which degenerated traditional practices and ancestral knowledge. It was in short, a time of strong dependence of the Soviet Union’s assistance masked under the impression of agricultural success as conceived by “progress standards” at that time.

Integrated pest management practices at this Organoponico

But the fall of the Soviet Union, bringing with it an economic crisis in Cuba, heavily disturbed the previous agricultural production model. The sudden absence of supplies during what’s called the Special Period (1991-1996) simply made it impossible to sustain such model and the reduced agricultural imports stressed the need to produce food alternatively. Practices such as integrated pest management were used instead of pesticides. Oxen’s were bred to replace tractors. To substitute for artificial fertilizers, crop rotation, green manures, addition of worm hummus and zeolites along soil conservation practices were used.

Beside this necessary switch from conventional to more agroecological production techniques, an urban agriculture movement rose thereby localizing food offer to the recently more populated urban areas. Organopónicos –organic urban farms- today can be seen in many, if not all, Cuban cities on what may have been unused lands, empty plots in between buildings or on the outskirts of city centers. Organopónicos involve the workforce of 44000 producers (as of 2006), use drip irrigation and produce mainly organically grown vegetables, fruits and herbs which are sold in farmers’ markets and on stands installed on the gardens themselves keeping the freshness in check. It is worth mentioning that these changes in the production model were favoured by changes in ownership structure, from state-owned to semi-private cooperatives.

Farmer's market stand in Santa Clara

Although Cuban agricultural production is far from satisfying the needs of the population and relies on the import of many staples such as wheat, vegetable oils and rice, the impressive reorganization of food production in times of crisis should not be overlooked. I think there is much to learn from Cuban’s recent agricultural experience…

Looking forward to teach about the technicalities of agroecological practices at the Permaculture Design course in Portugal and Ibiza this september.

Organoponico stand near Cienfuegos

References:Flebes-Gonzales, J.M. et al. 2006. Cuban agricultural policy in the last 25 years from conventional to organic agriculture.

At Odanadi, a home for survivors of human trafficking, we have been able to work with permaculture design for the benefit of the charity since 2012, offering bottom-up solutions that are low-cost and long-term (a food forest, for example, can last well beyond seven generations). The results are immediate and tangible, and bringing together members of the international yoga community for a Permaculture Design Course has been of benefit to the charity too.

The initial aim was relatively simple - build a vegetable garden. In the first phase, using greywater, and taking advantage of a broken underground pipe, we managed to achieve an abundant yield within a short period of time. To contextualise this, Mysore, like much of India, has been heavily deforested and the soil heavily eroded. We built a banana circle, but the bananas, no matter what we tried, died. We also planted a lot of trees, and as managers of the project, learned a lot through observation (and how to manage a large number of excited kids planting dozens of trees!).

Despite mixed results, a seed was planted in the hearts of the young poeple of Odanadi, aged between 3 and 25, and they carried on working with different methods to get a functional garden off the ground. When we returned in 2013, although the banana circle had gone, there were clear signs that the barren land had been worked - but it needed something more.

In the second phase, which started around December 2013, things were a little more organised. We started thinking more about forest succession and support species, cover crop, dynamic accumulators, mandala patterns, swales, water harvesting (the broken pipe had been fixed) and alternative energy. As well as this, we ran a PDC in February, 2014 in which international yoga students and a handful of teenagers from the centre took part. We also partnered with a local organic farm to get some strong banana suckers to rework the banana circle. As a result of the PDC we gained some superb design solutions from the students to implement in the future.

Our hope is that in future there will be such abundance that a wide variety of food will be available for the kids at any time they want. Early results are encouraging. The various types of resilient, nitrogen-fixing leguminous tree species are doing very well. Strawberries, a cover crop and dynamic accumulator, have been planted and are spreading nicely. The banana circle is looking great, and a coconut circle is doing well. The young ladies at the centre have organised themselves to maintain the vegetable garden beautifully and we are on target to have a flourishing small-scale intensive system!

If you would like to volunteer at Odanadi, check out their facebook page.

Beautiful initiatives are growing around the world, one is about growing food in urban spaces. Tomatoes, kale, basil, corn, beans, squash, fruit and nut trees and wild flowers for the bees and much more, growing on sidewalks, balconies, rooftops, edges of parks and parking lots, back alleys, and empty lots: is what many urban gardeners envision and are sprouting into reality. Certainly, living in cities has made us, urban dwellers, forget things such as what a tomato plant looks like, that strawberries don’t grow in February, that bees and other insects also need to eat, or that the soil is not simply dirt but a magical substance that if healthy, can be full of life and potential.

Well, the idea of growing food near where urban consumers are is not new. In fact the contrary -producing food far away from consumers-, doesn’t make much logical sense. But the industrialization of the food system along with efficient long distance transportation has allowed cities to import most of their food and decreased their reliance on local farms. A century ago, when the phenomenon of distancing the urban consumer population with the production of food was in its early stages, visionary Ebenezer Howard, published his book Gardens of To-morrow conceptualizing human settlements in a combination of town and country. Unfortunately, most cities that were born in North America since then were not planned with this concept, but instead with single functional zoning and bylaws that prohibit farming where most people live. However today, some of these cities and suburbs are currently being retrofitted often by grassroots initiatives. These initiatives are looking to bring life and derive beneficial products from confined unused spaces within a concrete and asphalt environment.

photo credit: Geoffrey Boulangé

Last weekend in Montreal, a group of proactive people organized a planting day around a neighbourhood, the Mile End. They had planted from seed a bunch of vegetable plants and flowers in their apartment hallways and bedrooms. Neighbors, citizens, and people walking by showed up and were distributed an association of plants to be planted around the area transforming the neighborhood into an edible one while the summer lasts. The associations of plants were such that they work well together: some provide nutrients to the other, attract pollinators or beneficial insects that predate pests, offer soil cover to prevent weeds, or create just the right amount of shade. These beneficial associations of plants, also called guilds, are common in Permaculture Design. The transformation of the now edible Mile End seemed to flow well and simply because it was a collective effort. On a side note, some of the reoccurring concerns when it comes to use public spaces for growing food are "Who will take care of the plants?" and "People are going to steal them!", but the idea is about attempting to create a community that shares and respects sources of life and subsistence. Not acting and hoping for the best because of fear is outdated in these times of pressing need for change.

photo credit: Geoffrey Boulangé

"You'd be surprised what the soil could do if you let it be your canvas. You just couldn't imagine how amazing a sunflower is and how it affects people." –Ron Finley

Another great example is Ron Finley, an artist and “guerrilla gardener” from South Central LA. He is converting the strip between the sidewalks and the streets typically covered with lawn with diverse edible plants from which he hopes to unleash a healthier food culture and reclaim access to healthy and safe food in a place where fast foods reign. He has an inspirational and amusing TEDtalk about it.

“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city. Plus you get strawberries.” –Ron Finley

Getting people to think about alternative food systems, realizing the thriving potential unused/wasted spaces have, using food as a vehicle for community building or hoping to improve city dwellers’ physical health through a better nutrition -as Ron Finley says amusingly “if kids grow kale, they eat kale”-, are just a few of the numerous positive consequences of gardening urban spaces. Vegetation helps mitigating the urban heat island effect, cleans the air, can help absorb excess water in time of storms not to mention the psychological advantages greenery has in humans. In NYC, vegetation’s function of absorbing water has inspired the design of bioswales, curbside gardens with a deep layered system and plants purposely chosen because they take a lot of water. These bioswales can help absorb runoff in times of storm when the pipes can’t handle the excess water and sewage can overflow into local waterways. This bioswales thus help saving the city highly pricey infrastructure such as new pipe systems. Plus some of the plants on these bioswales can be edible thereby being multifunctional!In a farmer's market in Cincinnati last summer, I bought vegetables from kids that are some of the youth that plans, plants, grows, harvests, markets, eats and prepares organic food as a part of the Permaganic Eco Garden program. Permaganic is a wonderful program that has converted a plot in the middle of Cincinnati into a permaculture and organic vegetable garden that invites the youth to learn life-skills such as growing food, managing market sales and cooking. This is just another creative and beautiful initiative sparking in people who wouldn’t necessarily be into farming, the interest on the way food grows, the relationship between the air, soil, water and energy, the connection between diet and health and ultimately realize how dependent we are to the land (click here for a video of the Eco Garden with interviews of the happy youth working there).

Check out the movie Edible City: Grow the Revolution for free on youtube just to get a glance on how urban agriculture is restoring our food system through the involvement of marginalized communities.

There are tons of these initiatives out there today all around the globe, and it is beautiful to see Permaculture Design helping turning the wheels of these ideas, from their conceptualization to their realization. A shift is occurring, one that brings alternative means of producing food characteristically local and this is all very exciting!